“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jenny said. “I would have said not to go. Aubrey can’t be trusted. She set you up.”
“No, Aubrey’s the one who told me the truth,” Tim said. “The only one who did. And she tried to arrange for me to hear it from Kate directly. You know how much that meant to me? I didn’t tell you because she asked me not to, and because I didn’t trust you not to interfere. I didn’t trust you, Jen. My own wife.”
“I understand,” Jenny said. “And I deserve that. But in my defense, I was so young when this happened. They pressured me to lie. I should have told you the truth years ago, but I’d been lying for so long, I didn’t know how to stop. I was afraid of what it would do to our marriage. I wanted to protect you. Can you understand that?”
“I can try. You’re still my wife. I still love you. That hasn’t changed.”
Jenny nodded miserably, tears spilling from her eyes. “I love you, too. No matter what happened last Friday, I love you, Tim.”
And she did. She loved the things about him that any woman would love in a man. That he was strong and handsome. That he was a good father, and could fix anything—the house, their cars, her phone when it broke. That his eyes lit up when she walked into a room. That he’d been there for her when her father died. That he grilled a mean steak and did the dishes. All of it.
“I didn’t want it to happen,” Tim said. “I went to the parking lot like Aubrey said, and—”
“Stop,” she said, and put her fingers to Tim’s lips. “It’s better if I don’t know the details.”
“Let me talk. I don’t want secrets between us anymore.”
“All right, I understand. If that’s how you feel, go ahead.”
“Aubrey told me to park off the road, where nobody could see my truck, and to get into her car to wait for Kate. That seemed strange to me. I probably should’ve known then that something was fishy, but I was so focused on what Kate would say. When she showed up, she was shocked to see me. She thought she was meeting Aubrey alone, but Aubrey drove off and left us together. Kate didn’t want to talk. I kept pushing her toward the bridge because I wanted to confront her about Lucas. I was desperate to get the truth, and I got carried away, Jenny. I said things to Kate, terrible things. I made her jump,” he said, tears streaming down his face.
“Kate jumped?”
“Yes, of course. I would never—did you think I pushed her?”
“No, of course I didn’t think that,” Jenny assured him, but inside, she was deeply relieved, because she hadn’t been sure.
“So you told her to jump, and she just did it?” she asked.
“I told her I knew that she pushed Lucas off the bridge. She tried to make excuses, like she just got carried away. I wasn’t having that. I told her she was despicable, and a coward for not taking responsibility for her actions. Jenny, I said she deserved to die, and she should jump and do everybody a favor.”
“And then she did?”
“Not right that second. She was standing there staring at the water, and I walked away. But obviously she listened in the end.”
“So you didn’t see her jump?”
“No, but obviously she did it. It was my fault. If you’d been there, you’d understand. I talked her into it.”
“Tim, Kate’s been suicidal ever since I’ve known her. Her life was a mess. Divorce, an affair, she was broke. This wasn’t about you. It wasn’t even about Lucas. Kate killed herself for other reasons.”
“I read in the paper that she was pregnant. I never knew that. It’s eating me up inside.”
“How would you know? You couldn’t have known, babe.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“But it wasn’t your fault,” Jenny insisted. “You didn’t push her off the bridge. You didn’t even see her jump. You left her there alive. What she chose to do after that was her own decision. She could have stood there for another hour thinking about all sorts of things. For all we know, she could’ve fallen in by accident. You have to stop being so hard on yourself.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
He collapsed into her arms, and she held him, stroking his hair. They cried together for a while. Jenny cried for Kate, her dazzling friend, whose flaws were fatal in the end. But most of all she cried for Tim, her husband, whose act of bravery as a young man had left him damaged. Whether he caused Kate’s death or not, he would carry the guilt forever.
Jenny looked around her kitchen, that she loved so much, and into the den, where Tim had made a fire in the fireplace, as he often did on cold nights. Such a cozy scene, smelling of woodsmoke and pizza and home, with the sound of the kids’ footsteps on the ceiling above. Neither Jenny nor Tim could bring Kate back. There was no reason to tear down the life they’d built together because of guilt for something that wasn’t even clearly Tim’s fault. They had too much to lose, and nothing to gain. The best thing was to clean up the loose ends, and move on.
Jenny grabbed the cap, and walked over to the fireplace in the next room, where the embers burned low and red-hot. She moved the fireplace screen aside and laid the hat on top, jabbing it with the iron poker until it caught and flared up. Tim came to stand beside her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you loved that cap.”
He put his arm around her and held her tightly as they watched it burn. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “What matters is us. This family.”
When the hat was reduced to ashes, Tim carefully replaced the fireplace screen so embers wouldn’t singe the carpet. Jenny took his hand, and they walked up the stairs together to tell the kids it was time for bed.
35
Griff was released with no fanfare, in sharp contrast to the manner in which he’d been arrested. He signed a few forms. His clothing and wallet were returned to him, but not his phone, which had been sent off to some forensics lab for analysis and, now that his charges had been dropped, would supposedly be returned by mail. (The delay upset him; the phone contained all his recent pictures of Kate, and he wanted to be able to look at her.) A corrections officer flipped a switch, and the metal gate of the county jail opened with a harsh clang. Griff trudged out into the cold morning, where ugly snow flurries swirled under a glowering sky. The parking lot was nearly empty. There were no reporters, no TV trucks, no flashbulbs. The image of Griff being handcuffed while spread-eagled against a police cruiser had been beamed to screens around the world, but the press wasn’t interested in documenting his innocence.
He turned around and looked back at the jail, an ugly modern building made of brownish brick. What a relief to be out of that shithole. As Griff checked his wallet to see if he had enough cash for a taxi, a nondescript sedan pulled into the parking lot and rolled up to him. The driver leaned over to open the passenger door. He was pudgy and jovial-looking, with a scruffy beard.
“Mr. Rothenberg?”
“Yes?”